F*ck yes, 6 contestants. I have been waiting years for 6 contestants to be used again. Now, I'm curious what the format is. Do they declare "East" or "West" champions with an MVP? Or is it "West" or "East" with no MVP? Or does it still end up with an individual champion?

F*ck yes, 6 contestants. I have been waiting years for 6 contestants to be used again. Now, I'm curious what the format is. Do they declare "East" or "West" champions with an MVP? Or is it "West" or "East" with no MVP? Or does it still end up with an individual champion?

I am also excited about the return of six contestants. Here's a rundown of the rules:

TEAM ROUND
• Each competitor will complete two dunks which will be scored on a scale of 6 to 10 by a panel of 5 judges.
• Each dunk has a maximum score of 50 and a minimum score of 30.
• FIRST DUNK - All three Eastern Conference players will complete their first dunk, followed by the three West players.
• SECOND DUNK - All three Eastern Conference players will complete their second dunk, followed by the three West players. The second dunk order WITHIN each conference will be determined by first dunk scores (lowest to highest).
• The three Eastern Conference players will have their scores (all six dunks) added to get a TOTAL score.
• The three Western Conference players will have their scores (all six dunks) added to get a TOTAL score.
• 50 POINTS will be awarded to the conference that has the highest TOTAL score after the Team Round.
• Each time a player scores a perfect 50 for a dunk during the Team Round, his conference will have 10 BONUS POINTS added to its overall All-Star Saturday Night score.
• The East player with the highest combined score for his two dunks advances to the Championship Round.
• The West player with the highest combined score for his two dunks advances to the Championship Round.
CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND
• The highest scoring East competitor and the highest scoring West competitor from the Team Round will compete head-to-head to determine the competition champion.
• The competitor with the lower combined score for his two Team Round dunks will go first.
• The players will alternate, each completing two dunks in the Championship Round.
• At the beginning of the Championship Round, fan voting polls will open with four voting options:
1) SMS Text Message* - Text the player's last name to 38657(DUNKS)
2) Twitter** - Tweet #SpriteSlam with the player's last name
3) Vote via the NBA All-Star App
4) Log on to NBA.com from any computer or mobile device
• The player who has the highest percentage of combined votes from all platforms will be crowned champion.
• 55 POINTS will be awarded to the conference of the competition champion.

Fan voting is obviously a terrible idea, but having it only in the finals is better than having the entire contest being judged by fans. Also, it'd be nice to have three first round dunks a piece but I'm honestly okay with two, because I didn't put it past the NBA to add six contestants and only give them one first round dunk. So I'm actually quite pleased.

I just don't understand why they need to break it down into the East/West thing for it. Let the points tally up for the team for the whole night or whatever they're doing, but having the two conference winners in the final round is dumb.

Just keep it the two highest scores make the finals, if it's two East guys or two West guys who cares? It's not that serious.

Of course watch these rules will work out perfectly now that I'm bitching about them.

The contest is still technically individual, so yeah. East will easily earn a lot of points the Conference team for sure.

But another sad thing is that my boy Terrence Rose will have even less chance to qualify to the final round when there are already two proven show-dunkers in his "team". T-Ross should better bring his best right away.